Christ and the Woman of Samaria

c. 1470

Christ asks the Samaritan woman to give him water to drink. She is taken aback because Jews did not associate with Samaritans. He speaks to her of the water of life that cures all thirst and reveals himself as the Messiah.The maker of this metalcut used punches, gouges, and engraving tools to produce a rich array of textures that gives the surface such animated character. The textures enabled the image to compete with completely hand-painted imagery despite being colored with a very limited palette. Prints of this scale and sophistication were sometimes pasted into books as supplementary illustrations, which is why they have survived for more than 500 years.